


like glue

by evitably



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/F, Female Friendship, Project Freelancer, Shippy Gen, Women in the Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-22 21:22:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2522234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evitably/pseuds/evitably
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>South and CT's friendship is the result of an environment with too many men and too few women. It doesn't mean it isn't real; it <em>does</em> mean that if they don't back each other up, no one else will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like glue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for CT appreciation week on tumblr.
> 
> Many thanks to [Elfwreck](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck) for betaing; all remaining mistakes are entirely my own. As always, concrit (private, public, anonymous or named) is always welcome.

South and Connie have a system. It's a good system, and it's got them through almost two years of sharing a room with only minor altercations, and it goes like this: when one of them goes to sleep when the other's not in the room, she makes sure the bedside light for the other is on, switches off the overhead lights, and that's it. The other, in return, makes sure not to turn the headlights back on or to make too much noise. It's simple, it's elegant, and _it works_.

And they only ever break it when it's important.

So when Connie says "South?" right before South nods off, South forcibly shakes off the oncoming fog off and grunts, "Yeah?"

Connie doesn't speak for a while. South rolls over to her side and shifts so she can poke her head down to see what's going on in the lower bunk, and finds Connie sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed. Her shoulders are bowed, and her fingers twitch where they rest on top of her thighs.

"Connie?" she asks uncertainly. She's really hoping that Connie isn't crying; South has only ever seen Connie cry once before, and that was when she'd gotten kicked off the leaderboard after having worked so hard to reach it in the first place. "Connie, did something happen?"

Connie looks up at her, rests her head against the metal wall of the ship. There's a vulnerable edge in her eyes that makes South want to climb down into Connie's bed and wrap her in a hug, but Connie pulls her knees up defensively and South knows the contact wouldn't be appreciated. Connie's never been one for feel-better hugs anyway, but she's always been good with words. "Could you do me a favor?" she asks.

"A favor," says South.

"Can you stop calling me Connie?"

"You woke me up for that?"

"South," she says. " _Please_."

South lets out a sigh. "All right, all right. I won't call you Connie anymore if that's what you want. D'you want me to call you Connecticut now or what?"

"CT's fine," she says. Her shoulders unbunch, and her brows don't seem as pinched anymore. She angles her head up to get a better look at South, baring a stripe of her neck for South to see.

It's stupid. South shares a small, cramped room with Con-- with CT, has shared a room with her ever since they've been recruited for Project Freelancer almost two years back. They've shared showers, and South has never been as bewitched by CT's bare skin as she is whenever her shirt accidentally rides up or her pants ride down. It's stupid, but South can't help stealing glances at CT whenever her nakedness isn't for functional reasons like getting dressed or showering.

South swallows. Hard. Makes herself look CT in the eye. She hopes the relative darkness hides most of her blush, or that CT will think it's the result of her head hanging over the edge of her bunk. "Okay," she says. "CT it is, then. Anything else, or can I go to sleep?"

"No, that's all," CT says, except she practically curls in on herself in obvious misery again. "G'night, South."

"All right." South rolls her upper body back onto her bed. She tries the name out loud as she stares up at the ceiling: "G'night, CT. See ya tomorrow."

It's nearly an hour later before South can hear CT sliding between the sheets, and soon after, the low, ambient glow of the bedside light disappears.

South takes some time longer to settle down; she has the feeling that something important has just happened, but she's not sure what.

*

They met in training. Not basic, not advanced either, but some PFL-specific program that was called something like "advanced specialized training" or some other such bullshit. It was easier to just call it 'training'.

South had found herself in a group that had North, Utah, Georgia, a few others that had ended up washing out of the project, and Connie. They'd all been recruited from their previous units after passing test after test after test. They all deserved to be there. They were all equal.

Except that aside from South and Connie, they were all men.

South knew what that meant; her heart sank.

The two of them were assigned the same room, and were given a separate bathroom for themselves that had two shower stalls and three toilets. They had no choice but to become friends. It was either friends or the bitterest of enemies, because later, much later, they discovered that South could hold grudges for a very long time and that Connie took everything to heart.

That first night, South told Connie they had to talk.

"Everything's all right?" Connie had asked warily from where she sat on her bed. There were two sets of bunk beds in the room, four waist-sized lockers for their gear and another four for their armor suits, but there were only the two of them and that meant they both got to have a bottom bunk as well as four lockers each.

"Yeah, there's nothing wrong. It's just that -- we're the only two women here."

Connie's face had the classic ' _huh?_ ' expression that South was so familiar with from having participated in this talk so often.

South goes for blunt. "How many women did your last unit have?"

"It was about even," said Connie.

South said, "In mine, we had five. They're four now that I'm here. It's ... " she hesitated at the confusion still visible in Connie's expression. "I'm not gonna lie to you. It's rough. And sometimes it really, really sucks."

"You have your brother here with you though," Connie pointed out. "And we all got here based on skill."

South shook her head. "Having him around helped some in the past, but this has nothing to do with him, or with us being just as skilled as them. Soon enough they're going to lump us together in everything, if they're not doing it already. If I mess up, they'll take it out on you someway. And if you mess up, they'll take it out on me. Except you're going to have it worse than me, because they'll remember that North's my brother."

"Oh," Connie said.

"So I figured we should talk first, let you know we should stick together. Watch each other's back and help each other out. We can't afford to be just as good as the guys," she said. "We have to be _better_."

"We ladies got to stick together, eh?" Connie said, tilting her head back in amusement. "Like glue?" South found herself looking at the line of Connie's neck and the skin stretching out over her clavicles, peeking from under her t-shirt.

"Better make that super glue," she said wistfully, knowing better than to even attempt starting something between the two of them.

Connie laughed at that, and after a beat South did too, and thus was the start of a friendship. It wasn't perfect, easy, or beautiful, but it was theirs and it _mattered_.

*

Where Connie used to be a solid presence at South's back, CT is a ghost. Not in the physical sense -- she still does drills and training with the rest of them, still goes on missions. But she's quieter than she used to be at mealtimes, and she retreats back to her and South's room to read more and more often instead of helping them create a ruckus in the rec room during downtime.

South sees her sometimes in the training hall. Her stance is tight, limbs strained. She's unfocused, and misses more targets than she hits.

There's something wrong with CT; that much is obvious. Now if only CT didn't sneak into their room every night after South has already fallen asleep, if only she stayed in one place long enough for South to ask what was wrong.

South doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know what she's done wrong.

She takes her frustrations out on her practice targets.

*

South would've said that the training was hell, but training was always hell so that wasn't news. It didn't matter how advanced it was, or how specialized it was -- training was hell. And when she couldn't run anymore, couldn't really raise her arms let alone her feet, or thighs, she was neck-deep in field manuals or stuck in a too-small chair behind a desk in a classroom.

They had a quiz every single day, right after breakfast, which was right after morning drills, which was right after waking the fuck up after way too little sleep.

South would not have made it past the first two _weeks_ if Connie hadn't been there.

"Hey South, what's the caliber of the 99-S5?" Connie asked one night after lights out. South grunted at her, rolled over, and put her pillow over her head. "South, come on; I think it's going to be on the quiz tomorrow. Help me out here."

"If you don't shut up, we're both going to fail tomorrow's quiz," South moaned into her pillow.

"But --" Connie's next words got stopped as she caught a faceful of South's pillow. "Hey, not cool!"

"Connie. I can hardly remember my own name. What makes you think I can remember some gun's caliber?"

"Fine." There was a pause. "But I'm keeping your pillow."

"I'll fight you for it," said South. "Tomorrow. Now _let me sleep_."

"Good night, South."

"G'night Connie."

She was almost asleep when Connie said, "It's like they don't trust us to learn all of this if they don't quiz us."

" _Good night, Connie._ "

The next morning, South got up first while Connie lay half on top her own pillow, her face smushed against South's, moaning about not having slept enough.

There was a smile tugging at South's mouth seconds before she tugged the blankets off Connie.

"I hate you," Connie said, and buried her face deeper into South's pillow.

(Months later, once they were already onboard Mother of Invention, Connie would tell South that if it hadn't been for her, she would've failed training herself.)

*

The last group to finish training and join the Freelancers consists of only one agent: Texas. South doesn't find it too strange, since the group before only had Wash and Maine. She's getting the feeling that something big is going to happen soon, that this drop in new agents means that the project already has all the people it needs to do what it was made to do.

Anyway. Texas.

Texas shows up in the training hall one day, followed by York, Wyoming and Maine like ducklings with a purpose. Maine is itching for a fight by his stance, York is trying to diffuse the tension simply by existing, and South would bet anything that under his helmet, Wyoming is smirking.

"You might want to get off the floor for this one," York calls out in her and CT's direction.

"Unless you'd like to join our little party," Wyoming interjects.

"As if I'd ever come to a party of yours, Wyoming!" South shouts. In the background, she can hear with half an ear that CT is asking York what's going on.

"New recruit, right from training," says York. "Somehow ended up challenging all of us, so here we are."

"That takes guts," says South, joining York and CT's conversation and tuning out the sound of Wyoming's laughter. Her eyes follow the new guy, and she identifies the aggression that's wound up around him. She's seen it in Carolina. She's seen it in Connie sometimes, when she wanted to prove herself.

She's seen it in herself.

"South," CT says sharply, and the recognition ends. "You coming?"

"Yeah," South says. She clasps York on the shoulder. "Good luck."

"Thanks. Will you two be watching?"

"Yes," says South at the same time as CT says "No."

York nods at them and leaves to Maine and Wyoming. South and CT step off the floor, head outside the hall, and when South goes to the observatory room, CT starts in a different direction.

"Come on, CT, we've never seen a three-on-one before," she cajoles. "I got the feeling it's gonna be _epic_. Don't you wanna see how it goes?"

CT sighs. "I do," she admits, reluctance written all over her voice. But then she squares her shoulders. "But there's something I gotta do first."

"Oh," says South.

"If it's still going once I'm done I'll come join you, all right?"

"Yeah," South says. "Yeah, okay."

And she continues walking to the observatory room.

So much for sticking together, she thinks.

*

The transfer to Mother of Invention was welcome, to say the least. So yeah, maybe South had lost her armor polish, and maybe Connie had lost three pairs of socks and a bra, and maybe their gear had arrived in more pieces than it was originally meant to be in, but at least they weren't on trainee status anymore.

"Freedom," Connie sighed as she stretched all over her newly claimed bottom bunk. In her armor.

"Until orientation," South reminded her, going through her belongings and putting them away.

"That's still half an hour away." Connie yawned. "Wake me up when it's time to leave."

South rolled her eyes and left her to her nap.

The only downside to having transferred to a spaceship was the downgrading of their living quarters: their new room was tiny, hardly three steps from the sliding door to the bed. The beds were bunk beds, and if South hadn't had such a childish delight (born of childhood deprivation) for sleeping in the upper bunk, she would've fought Connie tooth and nail for the bottom bunk. There was a small desk on one end of the room that only fit one chair and hid part of the bed from view, but on the other end there was a decent-sized wardrobe that reached South's shoulders.

They had to share showers with others.

South had gotten so used to only Connie being her shower mate, the one she passed shampoo and soap and conditioner with, whose moisturizer she stole when Connie wasn't looking because it smelled really good and Connie wouldn't share where she'd ordered it from. South didn't relish finding herself sharing a shower stall with a stranger's hairs.

But on the other hand ... sharing a shower stall with a stranger's hairs meant there were women other than her and Connie in the unit, and as much as South liked Connie, sometimes she felt like Connie's mere presence was choking her.

Ten minutes before they were due for orientation, South shook Connie awake. "Time to go."

"I'm up, I'm up," Connie said, then raised her hand in South's direction. "Help me up."

"Next you'll want me to give you a piggyback ride to orientation," said South, but caught Connie's hand and hauled her into a sitting position that couldn't at all have been comfortable.

"Not _to_ orientation."

"No _way_ am I carrying you back from orientation," South said, and hauled Connie the rest of the way onto her feet. "Come on, sleeping beauty, time for us princesses to turn soldiers for the day."

In the end, South only carried Connie _some_ of the way back to their quarters. A corridor, no more.

Maybe two.

*

"This is _such bullshit_ ," South says as she paces the tiny room.

"I know," CT says.

"What's he even thinking! Why am I being _grounded_ like some _invalid_ when the rest of my squad is being sent out?!"

There really isn't much room to pace in while CT's putting on her undersuit clothes, thin and tight and only there to protect the skin from chafing against the kevlar suit and the way it presses under armor.

"I _know_ , South," CT says. "Trust me, we're not happy about it either."

South lets out a bark of laughter, short and ugly and it tears at her throat. " _We_? Just. Just be honest. You're probably the only one unhappy with that. I bet Carolina's all relieved I won't be there to screw things up for her, this time."

"Carolina doesn't hate you."

"Yeah," says South. " _Right_."

"And even if she does," CT says, starting to check the stretch and fold of her clothes across her joints, "everybody knows you're a damn good soldier."

"Except the Director," South says bitterly.

CT snorts. "Yeah, and his assessment is always so accurate and not biased at all."

South keeps pacing. CT starts putting her kevlar bodysuit on.

"You know what I don't get?" South says. "Why are _you_ being sent out?"

CT's hands twitch. "Huh?"

"You're not on the leaderboard either. So why are you being sent out there and I'm being told to sit this mission out?"

"Jesus, South, the _leaderboard_?" CT asks. "You're still hung up on that piece of shit thing?"

"Just because you've _given up_ on being on the leaderboard --"

"I haven't given up!" CT says. Loudly.

South hasn't been expecting that.

"I haven't given up," CT repeats, lower. "But I refuse to keep playing this game of theirs anymore."

"Yeah, well. I guess I'm not as good as you, because I'm going to keep playing this _game_ of theirs, _and win_ ," South says venomously. She takes the three steps to the door, watches it slide open, feels CT's eyes on the back of her neck. "I'll come by to see you off later," she tells CT without looking back, and storms out.

*

Her name was Carolina, she was practically their squad leader, and she hated South.

"She doesn't even know you," Connie told South in exasperation.

And that, right there, was part of the problem. Carolina didn't seem to _want_ to know South, or Connie, or any other of their groupmates their abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. If South hadn't seen the way Carolina cared for the rest of the squad, she would've thought Carolina only thought of them as tools, not people.

"Maybe if you try talking to her?"

"I did," South moaned in a most pathetic manner. "I said the wrong thing. Again. At this rate even if she doesn't hate me now, she'll end up hating me soon."

"It couldn't have gone _that_ bad," said Connie.

"I may have accidentally implied her makeup was stupid."

Connie sighed.

"I tried apologizing, but that didn't go too well either."

Suddenly smiling, Connie said, "How did I ever end up liking you so much?"

"My charming personality and winning smile?" South smiled back at her, demonstrating.

Connie laughed, and patted South's cheek with the palm of her hand -- warm and calloused, short fingers, nails in need of clipping. Her hand lingered on South's face for a moment before drawing back, stealing South's ability to breathe along with it.

"I think it was your honesty," said Connie. "And your stubbornness that we should help each other out."

South grimaced. "It's not like I can go up to Carolina and say, 'hey boss, I know you were the only woman in here until now, but you have us now for company and we'd like to have you around', you know? She's been here longer than us and has the rank to not really need us, now that she's used to being alone. Why should she listen to me when I'm on her turf?"

"That does sound like a problem," Connie said, and didn't have any solutions, either.

*

"South?" CT whispers.

Up in her bunk, South contemplates pretending to be sleeping; she's tired, she's angry, she's tired of being angry and angry at being tired. "Yeah?"

CT shifts in her own bunk, and her movements shake South's. It's familiar, it's soothing, it's home. She lets out a breath and draws a long one in.

"I can't sleep."

CT moves again. South closes her eyes against the darkness. "Once upon a time," she starts, "there was a mighty princess --"

"What are you doing?" CT laughs.

"Telling you a bedtime story. Now shut up and listen ..."

They both fall asleep at some point during the story, but when South wakes up in the morning, CT's bed is already empty.

South finds her sitting in the mess hall, tucked away in one of the corner tables, not actually eating. Now that South thinks about it, she can't remember seeing CT eat much at all in recent weeks -- her cheekbones stand out in her round face, and the bones of her wrists look like they'll poke through her skin if CT makes a sudden move.

"Morning," South says as she sits in front of CT. She hums at South in acknowledgement, still poking at her food.

South looks at her, _really_ looks at her the way she doesn't usually allow herself, and sees the bags under CT's eyes, how her skin tone looks more ashen than pink, her nails -- bitten almost to the quick. Even her hair looks lackluster and thin.

 _Washed out_ are the words that come to mind.

CT looks _faded_. And South can't pinpoint the exact moment when her lively, cheerful friend turned into this worn and tired woman sitting in front of her.

"Hey, CT ..." she says hesitantly, "you feeling all right? You're looking kinda pale."

CT's hold tightens on her spoon. "I'm fine."

She's not. She's really, really not. But South doesn't press the matter; she figures that if CT wanted to tell her what's wrong, she would've done it already.

"Ready for first day of classes?" she asks instead. "Man, I haven't missed being in a classroom one bit, let me tell you that."

A smirk puts some color back in CT's face. "So if I asked you what's the caliber of the 99-S5 ...?"

"Fuck you," South says and throws a piece of toast at her.

"Seven nine." South groans as North puts his tray next to hers. "Good morning, by the way."

" _God_ ," she says. "Of course it's one of the weirder ones. No wonder they wanted us to memorize that one back in training. God forbid all sniper rifles use the same bullets."

He grins at her. "Wouldn't want you to run out of things to complain about, would they?"

South bumps into his side, careful to hit his ribs with her elbow. He grunts. "Love you too bro," she says sweetly, and glances at CT to share a smile, but only catches the sight of CT's back as she leaves the mess hall.

*

Every now and then South considered pulling Connie to the side where curious eyes wouldn't see them, and lay it all out. She would've brought some salty snacks they both liked, or maybe what passed on the ship for coffee, and would not have looked away when she told Connie how she felt about her.

But that was an idle dream that South knew she'd never fulfill. Not the part where she sat with Connie for coffee or a snack (they did that with a domestic regularity that South cherished) but the part where South admitted her attraction, where she said that she sometimes got the feeling that Connie felt the same?

No.

South couldn't do that to Connie, or to herself, or to their friendship. Or, hell, _to their careers_. There was a reasons for the anti-fraternization rules in the military: the possible abuse of power, the lack of objectivity, and the extremely likely possibility of the relationship going bad and souring things up for the entire unit to the point of risking lives.

These were the facts: South and Connie supported each other. Sure, South had North, but he had his own friends and his own life, and South desperately wanted to have something that did not include her twin. Something for herself.

So yeah. South and Connie supported each other. It was them against the world, the only two women of their rank on the ship (Carolina and Texas didn't want to count, so South didn't count them), and if they started a relationship (regulations be damned) and it ended badly, they would both have nobody to lean on. Connie would be left completely alone, while South would have to crawl back to North in disgrace, her latest attempt at independence having failed.

Not to mention that they would _still_ be sharing a room, a bunk bed, _showers_. For as long as they were in the program.

Better for them to stay friends than become lovers.

*

CT's quiet. She asks no questions, makes no sarcastic nor constructive comments. She sits and observes, and doesn't always react to her name. She's been that way since they got up that morning -- distracted, unresponsive, hunched up.

South makes sure to keep an eye on her, see if she's all right, if she needs anything. They've promised to watch out for each other, after all, and South doesn't go back on her word easily.

So when CT slips away from the rest of the group after they jump out of the pelican, South notices.

And follows her into the junkyard.

She figures she'll catch up with the rest of the squad later, and keeps half an ear on the squad radio channel until she and CT fly out of range. The sudden silence makes her realize just how far they've gotten from the rest, and that something's even more wrong than she'd originally thought.

She finally switches to CT's private channel, something she should've done from the start instead of fly off after her like an idiot. "CT, _what are you doing_?"

CT's form jerks off-course with a brief burst of flame, and stutters to something that, in deep space, is the equivalence of stopping.

"South?!"

"Who else? Do you have _any idea_ how off-course we are?"

"South, what are you doing here?!" She sounds panicked, afraid; South can't figure out by CT's tone whether she's afraid of or _for_ her.

All of a sudden, her decision to follow CT alone without informing any of the others seems incredibly stupid. Years of following protocol, years of professionalism -- they've all gone down the drain because South was too damn worried for her friend.

"CT ..." she starts. She hesitates. She says, "Is this what it looks like?"

"I don't know, South. You tell me, what _does_ it look like?"

It looks like CT is deserting.

After a moment of silence, CT says, "I'm done with the program, South."

"You're leaving."

"Yeah."

"You're leaving me with them. _Alone_."

CT laughs, loud and harsh. "Is this what you think this is? Me leaving you? South, you're the only fucking thing that kept me there for _months_. But I can't do it anymore, I can't stay there, I'm _done_ with it. I'm done with being the bad guy, I'm done with the fucking lies, and I'm done with being played with. I'm fucking _done_."

South looks at her, a tiny dot in space, and says, quietly, "This is the most you've said to me in days."

CT's sudden intake of air is loud enough to get broadcasted into South's helmet. "I can't stay there anymore," she says, voice cracking.

"Before I decide whether to report you or not," South says tightly, "I want you to answer one question. Why?"

"What, you're not going to shoot me and try to take me back by force?"

"Dammit, CT! Answer the _goddamn question_!"

"It's because what the program does, it isn't what we joined the army for," CT says. "I joined to save humanity, you know? But after a while in the program I started having questions, and I dug up information the Director didn't hide well enough, and then did even more digging. And. South, what the Director's hiding? It's _bad_. It's _really bad_."

"We're a classified military program," says South. "What were you expecting?"

"Not torture," CT says. "Or that he'd be doing some weird social experiments on _us_. And that's just for starters. The Director's the one who's been committing treason, South, not me."

And she says, " _Please_. You've got to believe me."

And the worst thing is, that South _does_ believe her. She remembers the inconsistencies between her actions and the Director's reactions, the little things that didn't make sense then and don't make sense still.

She remembers that she's trusted CT with her sanity for over two years. CT's always known to ask the right questions, could always tell when something was off, could always be counted on to steer South back on the right path.

"Do you have proof?" South asks.

"I do," CT says. "I've been collecting it for _months_."

"And you're sure this isn't something we can deal with from the inside?"

"I'm sure."

South would like nothing more than to rub her face in exhaustion. This isn't what she'd signed up for.

This ... really isn't what she'd signed up for, she realizes in a moment of clarity. She had not joined the army to play politics, or to run endless drills, or to attack other humans. She'd joined because it was the right thing to do, and because she was great at kicking ass.

North will understand, she thinks. He might be angry for a while, and disappointed, but when it comes down to it and she's not being an idiot, he trusts her. One day, he might even follow her.

"I'm coming with," she tells CT and activates her jetpack, floating in CT's direction.

"W--what?!"

"You heard me," she says. "I trust you more than I trust the others. If you say something's rotten in the program and that you have proof, then I believe you. And besides," she grins to herself inside her helmet. "I always did say we should stick together."


End file.
